Tag: vipkid

Next up, intonation! What is intonation exactly, and why does it matter? Intonation is made up of the pitches that rise and fall when we speak. When we speak, intonation acts like punctuation. Although we don’t think about it too often, our intonation actually communicates a lot about our intentions and emotions. Misplaced intonation can not only make the speaker’s English sound “off” or “accented,” but it can also give off the wrong impression or cause miscommunication.

American English relies a lot on falling intonation, which is when we drop or lower our voice at the end of a phrase. We tend to use it at the end of a thought for short assertions and questions with interrogative words. For example: It’s hot today. What are you wearing? In both examples, your voice naturally drops to indicate that you have completed the thought. Sometimes, in more complex sentences, we fall or drop more than once to indicate the separation of phrases or ideas. This acts in a similar way as a comma or a semicolon.

We also rely on rising intonation when we are asking a yes or no question. For example: Is it hot? In this example, your voice rises when you say the word “hot,” indicating to the listener that you expect a response. Sometimes ESL texts will mistakenly teach that all questions need rising intonation. This isn’t true. Think about how you say these two questions: Is it hot? Why is it so hot? In the first example, the intonation rises at the end. In the second example, “why” is stressed, and the intonation drops at the end.

For some sentences, we mix up the intonation. If we have an introductory phrase or clause, sometimes we rise at the end of the first part and fall when the sentence is completed. For example: If I go outside, I’ll get hot. We naturally rise a bit when we say “outside,” and we fall when we complete the thought with the word “hot.” We also go up and down when we are asking about two or more things. For example: Is it hot (rise) or cold (fall)?

If we are saying all the correct words, then why does intonation even matter that much? Surely the listener can figure out what we mean, right? Well, sometimes but not always. Plus, listeners can subconsciously judge the speaker by these little cues, even if they don’t intend to. Strong, falling intonation at the end of each phrase (or “lexical chunk”) makes the speaker sound more confident. Misplaced rising intonation makes the speaker sound confused or insincere.

A common mistake for Mandarin speakers is to increase their volume to stress meaning rather than use their intonation. In their native language, a change in tone indicates a totally different word. So, they often give equal stress to each word and up the volume to give certain words more value. This can come across as aggressive or angry, which is unfortunate when the speaker does not have that intention.

Fortunately though, with VIPKID, you are working with young students who still have a lot of linguistic flexibility. With the very young students, you might notice that they naturally copy your intonation. Your best strategy with the young ones is to pay attention to your own intonation. Make sure your speech stays as natural as possible, even when you slow the pace down. For example: Can you circle (rise)? Yes! (fall) I can circle! (fall) For the really young students, you can also practice repeating “uh-oh!” and “oh no!” with an intonation shift. This can actually be a pretty fun game. Drag a character or image off the screen and say, “oh no!” Sometimes we combine this with practicing “goodbye.” Either the teacher or the student will say “bye!” and lean over so they aren’t in view. Student or teacher then says, “Oh no! Where’s Student/Teacher?” It’s silly and exaggerated, and I’ve found that the young ones tend to copy my intonation exactly when we do it.

With the older, more advanced students, visual cues help. I like to draw little arrows to indicate the ups and downs. When you have longer reading passages, drawing arrows to coincide with the punctuation helps highlight how intonation acts as audible punctuation for the listener.

One great thing about focusing on intonation is that it naturally lends itself to fixing another common problem for Mandarin speakers: the dropped word endings. You’ve probably noticed that many of your VIPKID students struggle with their final S, T, L, D, and B sounds. It doesn’t come easily for them, so many students drop the sounds as they speak. However, focusing on intonation requires pauses as we rise and fall, which often helps the student slow down to finish the word correctly. Once the student gets in the habit of moving their pitch up and down, it is easier to add stress to place value on words rather than shooting the words out one by one. Intonation goes hand in hand with word stress, and when we stress a word, we are more likely to hit that final consonant as well.

Teaching American English pronunciation is always a challenge. So much about the way we speak has been ingrained in us basically since birth. Teaching the phonetic sounds is a little more straightforward than teaching suprasegmentals, but since the phonetic sounds don’t exist in isolation, you need to be able to address all of the elements of pronunciation and understand how they work together to form our speech. Like I said in my previous post, when you are working with young kids (such as with VIPKID), you oftentimes won’t be able to explicitly teach these elements. However, having a solid understanding will give you a better foundation for identifying the student’s pronunciation issues and addressing them within the context of the VIPKID curriculum. Today, I’m going to look at three things: word liaisons/connections, the “fast D” sound (a bit of a detour, but relevant!), and intonation.

When we speak English, our speech doesn’t sound “choppy,” but rather it sounds fluid or rhythmic because we naturally connect some words together when they are part of a thought group. This also allows us to speak faster than if we had to stop and pause after each word. There are some general rules we follow when it comes to connecting words.

1.) We connect words when a word ends in a consonant sound, and the next word begins with a vowel or semivowel (also called glides; W, Y, and R) sound. For example: “Pick up the phone!” The words “pick” and “up” are connected. It sounds like “pi+kup.”

2.) We connect words when a word ends in a consonant, and the next words begins with the same consonant or with a consonant that is produced from a similar position. For example: “I’ve been there!” The V and B sounds are both made at the lips, so it’s easy to blend them. It sounds like “I’vbin.”

3.) When a word ends in a vowel and the next begins with a vowel, they are connected with a semivowel, either a slight Y or W. For example: “Who is it?” It sounds like, “Who(w)izit?”

4.) This one is a weird one to teach. When a T, D, S, or Z sound is followed by a word that starts with Y, they are connected when the speech rate is fast (even moderately so).

5.) Pronouns are generally non-stressed and connected to the previous word. For example: “I knew her.” sounds like “I newer.”)

For students learning English, this can be tricky both for mimicking American English speech and for understanding the native English speaker. Word liaisons aren’t addressed in the early VIPKID levels, but they are essential for speaking and listening to English. So, what can we do? First, don’t completely avoid them. We generally need to slow our speech down for the lower levels, and this results in removing natural word liaisons. However, you can slow your speech rate without removing the connections completely. You can also introduce a phrase slowly, and then repeat it faster as the lesson progresses. This works great in the PreVIP levels because they are so repetitive anyway. So, the first time you ask the student for their name, you ask: What. Is. Your. Name? Then, next time, you say it faster and connect the first two words. Keep that up until you are asking the student for their name at a normal, natural rate…just like you would use when you meet a fellow English speaker for the first time.

Another opportunity to emphasize word liaisons is the song/poem slide in the lower levels. Like I mentioned in a previous post, these slides are helpful because you can focus on mimicking rather than learning the content. This slide is a good example:

The lines end with the phrase, “Shout it out.” This is a good chance to try to get the student to blend the words. They can generally repeat after you, “Shou+did+out,” with no major breaks. This example is also great because it shows how, when you connect the words, it actually changes the pronunciation of the individual sounds. In American English, when the T is between two vowel sounds (either in the same word or because of a word connection), the T is pronounced like a fast D sound. It’s also sometimes called a tapped T. We don’t change the T into a fast D when it’s in a stressed syllable (like attack).

For example, we pronounce “better” as “bedder,” “total” as “todal,” “little” as “liddul,” and “party” as “pardee.” You’ll note that in the words party and little, the T isn’t in-between two vowels. But, it is between two vowel sounds. We need to make a small vowel sound before we pronounce the L and R acts as a semivowel. If you say those sounds out loud and pay attention to what your tongue is doing, you can feel how you are making those sounds without your tongue touching anything…making it act as a vowel sound.

When working with students who are young enough to learn by listening rather than reading, you have a great opportunity to introduce these elements. For some words, if they learn the word before they learn to read it, it’s easier to get the correct pronunciation. In the VIPKID curriculum, the word “little” is a sight word early on. I like to use rewards to introduce this word to young students, preferably before they see it as a sight word. I have little ducks, and I hold them up when they do a good job. “Great! (Thumbs up!) You get a little duck!” The students tend to repeat “little duck!” It works nicely because the D sound is repeated and reinforced in the second word.

Native Mandarin speakers generally pronounce each word separately, and the characteristics of the language can make it hard to get comfortable connecting the words in English. Mandarin tends to start with consonants and end with vowels or nasal consonants (like n). However, learning word connections can actually alleviate one of the hardest things for Chinese speakers: those final T, L, B, and D consonants. A common mistake for Chinese speakers learning English is to drop those final consonant sounds and replace them with a W. If you can connect the final consonant with the next word, it’s easier to produce the consonant correctly. Common mistake: “Call her” is incorrectly pronounced as “Caw her” because the final L is a hard sound. If you link it, it’s much easier to say, “Ca+ller” with a good L sound. So, if you can get the students comfortable mimicking your word connections from an early on, you will be setting the stage for solid pronunciation habits as they progress toward fluency.

That’s it (or should I say…that+sit!) for word liaisons. Part II, intonation, coming soon.

One of the biggest reasons why parents push to have their very young children learn English is because they want exposure to the language during the child’s Critical Period. Studies don’t agree on exactly when this period ends, and it might be slightly different for each child. However, there is a general consensus that, especially when it comes to pronunciation and language fluency, the earlier the child begins to learn the language, the better. Some more conservative studies suggest that if a child does not begin to learn a language by the age of 5, the child will not be able to speak the language like a native speaker. When it comes to grammar and syntax, studies show that the timeline is much more flexible. Older children are able to learn grammar, and second language acquisition for children in the 7-14 year age range can be very successful. But when we are looking at pronouncing the language like a native speaker, it seems that early exposure is critical. And, if we consider that the goal of language is effective communication, pronunciation is critical when it comes to getting our message across to the listener. In fact, oftentimes HOW we say something influences comprehension just as much as WHAT we say. A single mispronounced sound or misplaced stress can cause the listener to completely misunderstand the intended meaning.

If you are VIPKID teacher, you probably know the struggle of teaching and correcting pronunciation. Unfortunately, while most teachers are generally familiar with the grammar rules of English and how to teach them, many of us have not spent a lot of time studying the phonetics of American English. In fact, many elements of pronunciation are just so ingrained in us from an early age that we do not even recognize them or have the ability to pinpoint what they are. We can, however, recognize when something is off or missing…when something doesn’t sound quite right. The challenge, then, is identifying the issue, explaining the problem, and helping the student correct it. Not an easy task! While the VIPKID curriculum does a pretty good job teaching phonics, it does not really provide as much for teaching phonetics (aside from the PreVIPKID curriculum). The workshops and materials for teachers do provide instruction on synthetic phonics, which is helpful for reading and for the pronunciation of certain sounds to some extent. If you haven’t looked over the information on synthetic phonics, I recommend you take some time to do that because it is a good place to start.

When we are talking about pronunciation, it is important to remember that we are actually examining two things: segmentals and suprasegmentals. Segmentals are the individual sounds; suprasegmentals apply to different segments that come together. Basically, you can think of suprasegmentals as all the “other stuff” that affects pronunciation: intonation, word stress, syllable stress, prosody/rhythm, etc. Many people think of pronunciation as simply pronouncing all of the sounds correctly, but that is only one small part of the way we speak. In fact (and I find this super interesting!), for many American listeners, fixing the suprasegmentals of a non-native English speaker’s speech can actually have a bigger impact on perceived “accent” than fixing segmentals. The bad news is…suprasegmentals are less tangible for most people and are generally much harder to adjust once they are “set” by our native language. Obviously, there is no hope in trying to explain to BaoBao the difference between syllable stress and stress patterns in descriptive phrases vs. set phrases. Many native English speaking adults will look at you funny if you try to explain it! The good news is, most of the VIPKID students are still young enough to copy and acquire these elements without having to understand them, which is why the listening phase and the parroting-everything-back phase are actually really useful as long as the teacher is speaking slowly yet naturally.

I do, however, think it is helpful for the teacher to have some knowledge of suprasegmentals, especially those elements that are specifically harder for native Chinese speakers. This allows the teacher to be prepared for common mistakes. It can also help us remember to continue to speak “naturally” even when we slow down our normal speech rate for beginner students. Keeping the importance of suprasegmentals in mind will also ensure that we take the parts of the VIPKID curriculum that really help with suprasegmentals seriously: songs and poems. Yes, I am sure we have all gotten to that dreaded Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed slide with 30 seconds left on the clock and thought…NOOOOOO! I personally dread all the songs actually, because I have a horrible singing voice. It is truly dreadful.

This part of the curriculum serves an important purpose though. Even if the student has no clue what we are saying, when they mimic your singing, they are incorporating the suprasegmental elements that they need. It is actually beneficial that they don’t understand the meaning, because this allows them to focus completely on mimicking your prosody, stress, and intonation…all the things that are almost impossible to teach. You might even notice that, if the student is more advanced, they try to read the words to the song rather than just mimic you, and they end up getting the rhythm wrong. Poetry acts in the same way because, even though you are not singing, the intonation and stress is exaggerated. And again, the WAY you speak is the focus of the activity rather than the meaning of the content.

I’ll be doing a short series of posts on three suprasegmentals: intonation, stress, and prosody. I plan to give a short overview of what they are, what to keep in mind when working with native Mandarin speakers, and (hopefully!) a few useful tips for helping your students with this element of pronunciation in the context of the VIPKID classroom. After that, I will write a short series on helping students listen to and reproduce the more difficult individual sounds. Although teaching pronunciation can be tricky and sometimes straight up confusing, it is an essential part of learning a language. The more you know about what your mouth (and everything in it!) is doing, the easier it will be to teach correct pronunciation to your VIPKID students.

I have taught English in quite a few different contexts: group classes, one-on-one classes, online classes, classes in the U.S., classes outside the U.S., etc. I have also been a language learner myself, and I have taken group classes and one-on-one classes. I think each context provides something new, and I can take something new from it to help me be a better teacher in any situation. This past week, I experienced a new context…mom watching her daughter take a language class! As usual, there was plenty to learn and take away from the experience.

My daughter had her first Mandarin class with Lingo Bus, which is the VIPKID version of Mandarin classes for English speaking children. It was a great experience, and my daughter loved it. I would highly recommend giving the free trial class a try. We had Teacher Steve, and he was excellent.

There were two things that really stood out to me while I was watching the class. First, the importance of a constant smile. My daughter was nervous at first. She didn’t crack a smile for at least the first 15 minutes of the class. However, the teacher maintained a constant positive expression, which eventually allowed my daughter to relax and get comfortable. She was very nervous about making a mistake, and the positive reinforcement really helped her gain the confidence to try.

Obviously, we all know that smiling is important! VIPKID teaching materials all remind teachers that smiling is essential. However, watching it from a mom’s perspective really drove it home. I will be recommitted to a BIG SMILE throughout the whole lesson, especially with the little ones.

Second…incidental language. Again, VIPKID training workshops and videos all remind us that incidental language is a big no-no. However, it can be really hard to cut it out. What is incidental language, and why is it so bad? Incidental language is basically all the extra words that we use to transition, introduce, or describe things…all the words that the student does not yet know and are not target words for the class. Incidental language is made of filler words, and we generally use a lot of them by habit. For example, “I want you to circle the letter A.” Or, “Let’s see….” “First, I want you to…” A brand new student does not know those words, so you just sound like the teacher from Charlie Brown. For the first example, all you need to say is “circle A,” while either circling it on the slide or perhaps on your whiteboard. You could repeat it by making a circle in the air with your mouse. Your actions should be conveying the message here because the words are not helpful. The other examples should just be cut out completely.

I thought that I was doing a pretty good job of not using incidental language, but after watching Teacher Steve teach the Lingo Bus class…I can see that I have some room for improvement. He used almost ZERO incidental language. Practically none! In the past, I have always taken language classes with a teacher who speaks English or as a student with some knowledge of that language. Watching the Mandarin class as someone with NO prior knowledge of the language, I realized just how much incidental language completely confuses the beginner student and throws off the lesson. Teacher Steve did a great job getting my daughter to complete all the activities through TPR and facial expression. After watching this class, I’m going to use the following as a guideline for incidental language and brand new VIPKID students: Would it be helpful if my daughter heard this instruction in Mandarin…or would it just be confusing and intimidating?

If there are any VIPKID teachers out there with young kids, I highly recommend doing a Lingo Bus trial and watching carefully. From this new perspective, you will absolutely learn something that will make you a better teacher. And, there is a good chance your son or daughter will have a great time and want to sign up for more classes!

If you are reading about language acquisition, you have probably frequently encountered the words “input,” “output.” Everyone wants to figure out: what is the best amount of input vs. output. How can we best get the input in the student and the output out of the student? How do we determine quality vs. quantity? Linguists and educators (all of them a lot smarter than I am!) have written a ton on the subject, but what I want to focus on today is the affective filter hypothesis. It basically deals with how non-linguistic factors, such as anxiety or stress, prohibit input. These negative feelings seem to act like a filter or screen, preventing the language from getting from the outside (the teacher’s mouth) into the mind of the student.

If you’ve never experienced learning a second language, you have still probably experienced something similar to this. Maybe you or a loved one has been really sick, and you are listening to the doctor explain the possible treatment. The situation is causing you to feel scared and anxious, and even though you are trying to listen to the doctor, you are not getting all the information into your brain. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we didn’t properly get the information until after the situation is over and our stress levels have dropped. So, even though we heard all the words, the stress filtered the comprehensible input.

Now, some suggest that the affective filter hypothesis doesn’t apply to children because they lack the affective filter that causes problems for adult language learners. I disagree. Children, from a very young age, experience stress and anxiety, especially in unfamiliar learning situations…and especially when they feel pressure or “on the spot.” I do think that very small babies acquire language in a very stress-free environment. If you watch how people interact with infants, it is hilarious. We smile, coo, and act goofy…right up in their little faces. We repeat the same words, mama, mamma, mama…over and over again from the time they are first born. And when they respond, we go nuts. Baby says “mama” for the first time, and the room lights up, everyone repeating “Mama!” “Mama!” Yay! Cheers! When, a few months later, baby waves bye bye to a random stranger in Target, the whole aisle goes nuts. Everyone smiles and waves. Baby hear friendly excited voices repeating “bye bye!” We tend to respond to babies like their words are downright miraculous. And you know what? They are! This tiny new human is building a foundation for a lifetime of communicating with the world the thoughts and feelings that will grow in their hearts and minds.

As we grow, we get more and more self aware and self conscious. And unfortunately, the world around us also gets more and more critical. Probably no one is cheering on your every utterance in the Target aisle anymore. Bummer.

So, by the time a kid is 3-4 years old, while they might not be as self conscious about making a mistake as an adult, they still experience stress and anxiety. When you have a PreVIP student, they are experiencing a new learning format for the first time. They are looking at a new face on a screen and listening to a new voice making sounds they don’t understand. It’s understandable that a lot of kids are going to feel at least some level of stress in that situation.

The reason why I wanted to focus on the affective filter and the very young student is because we generally think of anxiety in relation to output rather than input. When I think of stress and language, I tend to think of “freezing up” or stage fright…being scared and unable to respond. However, the affective filter hypothesis claims that negative emotions influence input. So, we have to keep in mind how stress is affecting the language coming in, not just the language coming out. This is really important for the younger students in the “listening phase” of language learning because input is our main goal.

Long story short, we have to find ways of lowering that filter, or in other words, we need to try to mitigate those negative feelings. And we have to do it in a different environment than most of us are used to because we are on a tiny screen rather than in person.

The most important thing you can do is smile. Right off the bat, you absolutely have to smile. It’s universal. We all want to see a smiling face. And you must keep smiling, no matter what. On a practical note, I find that my face reverts to a more neutral expression when I’m drawing on the screen or typing. So, I have to make a conscious effort to keep smiling. Second practical note, it helps to wear lipstick. I’m not a big make-up person, and I hate wearing lipstick. However, I can’t deny that my smile shows up and projects across camera better when I have some color.

You should also double check your set up. You don’t want to be too far or too close to your screen. You also need to make sure you are eye level. It is important that you don’t appear to be looking down at the student because that can be intimidating. You can prop your laptop up on books if you need to.

Another thing you can do is use familiar props. I like to use small Minnie and Mickey figures. I can hold them up next to my face, and I can bring them closer and then farther away from the screen. I’m not a familiar face, but Mickey almost always is! I also like small rubber duckies or dinosaurs. I know VIPKID recommends using a print out of the Mike and Meg characters, but they aren’t familiar at first so I don’t use those right away. I also like to start with sounds instead of words. The curriculum does this as well. For example, instead of holding up the dinosaur and saying “Hi dino,” I just hold up the dinosaur and say “roar!” Roar! Yay! Roar! Let the kid roar back a few times, then say “hi dino…roar!” The “roar” is familiar and fun before saying the English word “hi.” If I think the “roar” is going to be too scary, I do the same thing with a little duck. However, it seems like even the shyest kids like to roar.

One thing that is necessary yet stress inducing is correction. We sometimes have to correct pronunciation…it is inevitable. You can do it in a fun, easy way though. Using the recast technique is a friendly way to correct without being intimidating or making the student feel uncomfortable. Basically, when the student says something incorrectly, just say it back correctly. Give them a chance to say it right, and then move on. Don’t frown or say “that was wrong.” Keep your positive momentum and be really enthusiastic with your praise when the student says it correctly.

The last thing that helps me is simply acknowledging that the stress is there and that it is hindering the input. Keeping that in mind reminds me to be more compassionate toward the little student on the screen. It helps to remember that making the student comfortable is a constant, important part of the job, not just an occasional side hurdle to deal with.

Good luck with the little ones! I know that the beginner lessons can be difficult. Doing our best to reduce the non-linguistic factors that hinder language input can be challenge; however, it really is remarkable how language is acquired and developed, and it can be really fun to watch a student go from nervous and scared to happy and excited as they get more comfortable with you and more confident in their language skills.

If you join any VIPKID teacher facebook group, especially one for new teachers, you will probably see at least a couple posts per day from brand new teachers who are worried about getting through the material on time. Their concern is understandable! It can be a bit unnerving to open up that materials link for your first booking and see that you are expected to cover 35+ slides of information in just 25 minutes.

So, how can I thoroughly teach that much stuff in less than half an hour?? Answer, well…you can’t! At least, you don’t really have to. There are two reasons. First, the VIPKID curriculum is very repetitive (for good reason…more on that later!), so the student is going to get a review of that material again. The second reason, and the one I’d like to focus on, is because VIPKID uses a flipped classroom approach.

What is a flipped classroom? VIPKID explains it here. Basically, a flipped classroom…flips the traditional classroom. Growing up, you probably had lecture-style instruction from the teacher, busy work to fill up the day, and then homework at home to reinforce what was taught. So, the majority of the teacher’s instruction time was focused on introducing the concept to the students. Because the teacher was introducing a new concept, there were probably a lot of breaks for questions from the students, as they were processing the information for the first time.

A flipped classroom is the opposite. Work done at home, typically in the form of a video lecture or reading, introduces the concept, and the student has time to sort of play around with the concepts on their own first. Students can watch videos explaining concepts instead of listening to the teacher lecture, and they can do it at their own pace. This way, when the student gets in front of the teacher, they are already to the reinforcing part of the equation. Now, the teacher can focus on clarifying aspects of the concept that the student finds more challenging, or the teacher and student can extend on the concepts. So, instead of going deeper into the material at home with traditional homework, the student gets to go deeper into the material with the teacher (or with other students in the classroom). More efficient, right? And, despite the reliance on technology and online resources, it is actually *more* interactive.

How does VIPKID use the flipped classroom? Well, VIPKID students cover some of the material at home first. You are, in general, not introducing 35+ slides worth of new material to the student. Whew! You are the reinforcing part of the equation. So, when little Brucie flies through the 4 slides of “n-ap…nap!” you can give him a star and a high five and move on pretty quickly. That way, when get down to the 24th slide, and Brucie looks at you like you have four heads when you say “away,” you can take a little more time (and TPR) to reinforce that particular word. That is the beauty of the flipped classroom. Easy concepts are covered quickly by the student on his or her own time. Then, the teacher has a chance during the interactive time to focus on things that are, for one reason or another, tricky for the student. And, the great thing about the VIPKID method is the interactive part is one-on-one. So the teacher can really focus on clarifying and correcting the tricky things for that particular student.

So, how can you plan for that?! Good question. You can’t simply do the math; dividing the number of slides by available minutes isn’t going to work. There isn’t a “right” answer. But you can give yourself some guidelines. I like to aim for about half the slides in a little less than half the time. The slides in the second half of the lesson tend to take a little bit longer. I also like to move quickly through the first few slides since they are mostly review. One great thing about the VIPKID curriculum is the slides that best lend themselves to extension tend to be closer to the end. So, you can progress quickly, then start extending more and slowing down as you near the end, depending on the time you have left. So, if you aren’t sure about how fast a new student is going to move through the slides, simply meet the objective and go for the first slides, then start extending later on. Don’t spend time extending on the earlier slides unless you are familiar with the student and their expected pace. You can always slow down, but it can feel rushed toward the end if you have to speed up. You probably don’t want to end with a really rushed feeling, right?

Any more quick tips for getting through the slides in an appropriate amount of time? Keep your props simple and handy. You don’t have time to dig around for a certain prop. It is distracting and it takes time. Also, keep timing in mind when you are choosing a secondary reward. Don’t pick something that needs a ton of explanation if the student is too young or too much of a beginner to get it. I always use a simple reward for new students, and then I can have more fun with rewards for regulars who I know a bit better. And super important…keep that incidental language out! It takes time, and the student doesn’t know what you are saying. Your words/TPR should have purpose…otherwise you are wasting precious time and probably confusing your student too.

To recap, the flipped classroom approach means that your student has probably already seen the material, plus the curriculum is designed with repetition in mind. You don’t have to worry about introducing and thoroughly explaining every single thing you see on the slides. That is not your job! VIPKID gives you the objectives, which are mostly reinforcing what the student has already been exposed to, so keep your focus on what you are being asked to do. And remember, you are the fun part of the equation. You get to make the language come alive! Show the kids that communicating with someone in English is pleasant, not scary. Be a smiling face and offer tons of encouragement. The flipped classroom approach makes your job easier, so relax a little and have a good time.

Sometimes change is scary, and change in the field of education is no exception. People have a fear of their livelihood being taken over by a screen or a robot. It is an understandable fear. So, what is the deal with online learning? Scary? Scammy? Should we shake our fists like a grumpy old man and tell it to get off our (metaphorical) lawn?

This is a topic I delved into pretty deeply when I was in grad school and working toward an additional digital literacy certification. I remember the teacher bringing up a fairly humorous quote from Socrates about how the new-fangled approach of writing in the classroom was hurting the students’ ability to memorize. Kids these days! And though out history, you can see similar handwringing and worry about any change or new technology in the classroom. Personally, I’m the type of person who likes the feel of a real book in my hands and the idea of a physical teacher in the classroom. So, I was fairly skeptical of all this online learning business.

The first thing I had to get my head around was that there is actually a difference between “edu-tainment” (yes, a made up word…that’s how language works my friends) and digital literacy in education. Basically, there is a distinction between simply taking a plain old boring worksheet that you might have in a classroom and putting it in digital format on a screen for the student to complete, and actually utilizing digital media to change (dare I say, improve!) the way we educate. The first is basically putting busy work on a screen and hoping that the screen somehow makes the busy work more exciting for the student. The second concept is so much more than that. It is reading for knowledge, thinking critically, and actually communicating using different media platforms. It builds on traditional forms of literacy, and despite the reliance on technology, it is people-centered at heart. For a really basic overview of what digital literacy is, Wikipedia to the rescue. For a much more comprehensive understanding, check out Paul Gilster’s book Digital Literacy. It is an essential topic for any teacher, but it is especially relevant for those of us who teach online or in non-traditional forms.

So, what about VIPKID? Is it simply taking busy work and putting it on a screen to make a buck? Short answer, no. It isn’t. VIPKID has taken the digital literacy pedagogical approach to design a curriculum with multiple parts, allowing the student to develop their language skills using multiple platforms. Even though the native English speaking teacher is half a world away, student-teacher communicative interaction is still there. Technology isn’t replacing the teacher, it is instead providing a medium for the student and teacher to interact and engage. VIPKID also uses concepts of the “flipped classroom” (more on that later!) to maximize the opportunity to learn by communicating with the teacher after the basics have been overviewed outside the class. In that sense, we can see how the technology is working in conjunction with traditional forms of education (regular old homework). Additionally, VIPKID also has Chinese Learning Partners, Chinese teachers who are able to interact with the students and parents.

Basically, VIPKID is taking a puzzle-piece approach, with each piece complementing and supporting the other to help the child develop their English communication skills. Pretty cool, actually. And not so robots-taking-over-the-world, when you really examine it. Humans, and our desire to have meaningful interactions with each other, is still at the core. So, when you wake up at 3 AM, all bleary eyed and exhausted, and open up your laptop to see the happy (hopefully!) face of a cute little person on the other side of the planet, you can feel pretty good about your contribution to the puzzle, knowing that they are expanding their own ability to communicate, engage, and participate in the world around them though the gift of a second language.